Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-04T22:43:46.789Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Dawkins' Infinite Regress

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 February 2008

Roger Montague
Affiliation:
Taunton, TA3 7JH, England

Abstract

In The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins gives, but runs together, two criticisms of the argument from design. One is evolutionary and scientific; the other is a philosophical infinite regress argument. Disentangling them makes Dawkins' views clearer. The regress relies on the premiss that a designer must be more complex than the thing designed. I offer two comments about theists who might accept the regress, citing God's infinity. These comments defend Dawkins: but only by making him, when using his regress argument, an atheist who knows (if his “complexity” premiss holds) that God cannot exist.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Dawkins, Richard, The God Delusion, (London 2006, Bantam Press)Google Scholar.